Les Artistes

Healing the Pain

Una Burke Fall 2011 Meta.Morph Collection | Andreas Waldschütz & Steffan Sappert

A brilliant young woman, Una Burke’s designs are inspired by historic tragic events and body accessories that convey stages of a healing process. Her conceptual, wearable art pieces are associated with the cause, the physical and psychological effect and the healing stages of human trauma.

Rule-Breaking Collecting

Andy Spade’s Hamptons Manor

Andy Spade’s Hamptons Manorfrom Alison Chernick on Nowness.com.

Creative director, gallerist and raconteur Andy Spade invited filmmaker Alison Chernick to his Southampton family residence for an anecdotal overview of his high-low artworks. Spade and his wife Kate, founders of preppy handbag empire Kate Spade and its men’s offshoot Jack Spade (both sold to Neiman Marcus in 1999), have transformed the space into a showcase for their cache of treasures—from a rare Tony Alva skateboard to an original René Ricard to faux Picassos to model airplanes, picked up in flea markets across the country and through friends including Julian Schnabel.

The range is testament to Spade’s emotion-driven collecting philosophy, writes Nowness. Emotion is popping up everywhere today.

Smart Sensuality Values Man

Azzedine Alaïa on Wintour & Lagerfeld | Robotic Bartender with Heart AOC Short & Smart

Is it possible that LVMH’s Bernard Arnault really offered Azzedine Alaïa the top job at Dior? It wasn’t a blog but the Financial Times who broke the story a few days ago. We are convinced that Bernard Arnault is far more in touch with the changing values landscape than most business people.

Is it conceivable that Arnault and CEO Sidney Toledan would offer the Dior job to a man Anna Wintour refuses to feature in Vogue and even froze out of the 2009 ’ Model As Muse’ Metropolitan Museum exhibit, causing Azzedine Alaïa lovers Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista — all prominently featured in the exhibit — to boycott the big gala?

If so, then the power balance is changing in favor of Smart Sensuality values we write about here at AOC. Azzedine Alaïa is the consummate lover of Smart Sensuality women in a way that Modern values people Lagerfeld and Wintour don’t understand or relate to.

I don’t mean to write in code, but this shift is deep and oh so obvious to me. Like the Tunisian-born designer my mouth gets me in duck soup some days, too. It takes courage to speak one’s mind these days, but a change is in the wind.

The Arab spring may come to the fashion industry one day soon. Today ‘Alaia Calls Karl Lagerfeld a Hack, Says Anna Wintour Has No Taste’ is the headline. Stay tuned!

PS Another LVMH Smart Sensuality Values Guy | Marc Jacobs